1、专业八级-509 及答案解析(总分：100.01，做题时间：90 分钟)一、READING COMPREHENSIO(总题数：8，分数：100.00)The YouTube video starts with the road sign: Croxteth, City of Liverpool. A youth races a motorbike down a street, another encourages a snarling dog to harass a victim and a faceless young man points a shotgun to the camera,
2、followed by more guns, street scenes and the rap boasting of gang culture. The video has been posted on the website since October, viewed perhaps by thousands attracted by the violence of gang culture. In February the Chief Constable of Merseyside gave a stark warning: families that did nothing to s
3、top their children“s involvement in gun crime could find themselves identifying their child in the morgue. Yesterday Rhys Jones, an 11-year-old murdered, as he played football, by a hooded youth in a ride-by shooting, was the focus of nationwide horror at this latest victim of gangs with guns. The C
4、hief Constable“s warning could not have been more cruelly justified. Despite the publicity and alarm at the spate of murders of inner city teenagers in recent months, Britain is not, as some politicians have said, in a “state of anarchy“. Gun crime is far, far below the levels of Los Angeles or Wash
5、ington. Last year firearms were used in 61 homicides in England and Wales, 12 offences more than the 49 recorded in 2005-2006. Robberies involving guns were down 4 per cent on 2005, and hand-gun offences fell 11 per cent. But these figures conceal several ugly and dangerous trends. More than half al
6、l the gun crime occurred in only three places: Greater Manchester, the West Midlands and the London Metropolitan Police area. Guns are being used mainly by criminals linked to drug culture, but increasingly also they are acquired by gangs and are used for self-defence, to settle scores or enforce “r
7、espect“. This seepage is all the more alarming as the age of both users and victims is going down. In 2003 teenage victims of shooting formed 16 per cent of all victims; last year they were 31 per cent. Since the 1996 Dunblane massacre, Britain has had some of the toughest gun-control laws in the wo
8、rld. The importation and private possession of any gun is illegal. Those found with a gun face a minimum of five years in jail, and the loophole that allowed those aged 18-20 to avoid the five-term term has been closed. Yet access to guns, according to the police, has rarely been easier. Weapons are
9、 smuggled in, either from the Balkans or via Ireland, and are readily available. To fight the gun and gang culture, the police have focused on areas where it is most pernicious. Only a small section of the inner cities is involved; but the effect is disproportionately felt in black communities. In L
10、ondon, 75 per cent of all firearm homicides and shootings and 79 per cent of all suspects come from the African and Caribbean community. Operation Trident, the Met“s high-profile effort to involve this community in the fight against crime, has shown some success. But progress is negated by other tre
11、nds: the growing involvement of teenagers in drug use and distribution, the cult of “respect“, the proliferation of gangs and peer pressure. There is no need for new legislation, though penalties for the possession of guns by teenagers must be increased. The police need to extend the Trident operati
12、on, but on their own can do only so much. Far more support must come from the communities afflicted. In cracking down hard on gun culture, the police must insist on involving parents, community leaders and social workers. The prospect of more teenage killings is horrific. It can be countered only by
13、 eternal vigilance.（分数：9.00）(1).The first paragraph does NOT claim that _.（分数：3.00）A.Chief Constable“s warning is worth noticingB.Rhys Jones“s death has drawn the public“s attentionC.people who possess guns will be punishedD.teenagers have become the new targets of violence(2).According to the stati
14、stics, which of the following is INCORRECT?（分数：3.00）A.More and more young people are involved in gun crimes.B.Gun crimes are more likely to take place in certain cities.C.Drug use and distribution is a main cause of gun crimes.D.The gun crime in Britain was out of control last year.(3).Why does the
15、author say “the effect is disproportionately felt in black communities“ in Paragragh 5?（分数：3.00）A.Because the fight against gun crimes is more successful in black communities.B.Because black people in Britain commit more crimes than white people.C.Because black people have to fight with racial discr
16、imination in Britain.D.Because black people are more sensitive than white people in Britain.Oscar Wilde“s definition of a cynic was someone who knew the price of everything and the value of nothing. His epigram applies to the way we talk about education nowadays, focusing on what it can do for the e
17、conomy. That is indeed important, but it does not capture the real value of education. It is almost as if people are afraid of saying education is a good thing in itself. That comes from a loss of confidence in the importance of transmitting a body of knowledge, a culture, ways of thinking, from one
18、 generation to the next. It is a crucial obligation we have to the next generation and we are failing to discharge it. The latest example of this loss of confidence in education is the rifles of the departments created by splitting the Department for Education in two. We have the Department of Innov
19、ation, Universities and Skills and we have the Department for Children, Schools and Families. The key word that is missing in those two lists is education. It is almost as if the government has lost confidence in the value of education, as distinct from other worthwhile aims such as helping families
20、 or raising our levels of innovation. For the government, science is no longer about evidence and reason, it is a lever for increasing productivity. Foreign languages are not a means of appreciating the culture of another people; they are a means of improving trade. Yet people do not become teachers
21、 because they aspire to raising the rate of growth; they wish to pass on a love of their subjects. There is a paradox here. If we see education as a way of imparting a body of knowledge, we will do better at the functionalist side of education as well. Like happiness, it can be achieved only as a by
22、product of something else. Real education means real subjects with a history, shape and rigour, together with the intellectual curiosity to challenge and renew them. Our body of knowledge must be rooted in a tradition, but must also be open to questioning. Indeed, what we know changes all the timewh
23、en Einstein was at Oxford in the 1930s, he set a physics paper with the same questions for two years running. When his colleagues challenged him, he replied that although the questions were the same the answers were different. That is part of the excitement of intellectual endeavour. Of course, skil
24、ls matter too. But often they are best mastered through learning stuff. Look at what has gone wrong with history. We expect school-children to compare different primary sources and learn the analytical tools of the historian, but we will not allow them the sheer excitement of learning what happens n
25、ext in a narrative history of our own country. Several subjects now face the vicious spiral of not enough people emerging from university who have studied the subject to provide the teachers to keep it going in schools. We cannot just solve this problem by passing a law or setting yet another target
26、. We need a smarter policy than this that understands the role of a proud profession in living up to its own standards, and the power of choice by parents and students. There are problems with the national curriculum but even more important is the intricate relationship between the Qualifications an
27、d Curriculum Authority and the examining boards. This is the source of the dumbing down and predictability of exams.（分数：12.00）(1).Oscar Wilde“s definition of a cynic applies to the way we talk about today“s education because _.（分数：3.00）A.the public fail to value education for itselfB.the expenses of
28、 modern education is too highC.the definitions of two objects are the sameD.the economic development depends on education(2).Which of the following adjectives best describes the author“s attitude towards modern education?（分数：3.00）A.Objective.B.Positive.C.Negative.D.Biased.(3).The author draws an ana
29、logy between _.（分数：3.00）A.education and happinessB.productivity and happinessC.functionalism and productivityD.knowledge and productivity(4).Einstein“s story is cited as an example to support the following statements EXCEPT _.（分数：3.00）A.human beings have never given up exploring unknown areasB.the a
30、bility of critical thinking is essential for the studentsC.challenges are invisible motivation of scientific developmentD.skill-training is the most important part in educationLas Vegas uses flashing lights and ringing bells to create an illusion of reward and to encourage risk taking. Insurance com
31、pany offices present a more somber mood to remind us of our mortality. Every marketer knows that context and presentation influence our decisions. For the first time, economists are studying these phenomena scientifically. The economists are using a new technology that allows them to trace the activ
32、ity of neurons inside the brain and thereby study how emotions influence our choices, including economic choices like gambles and investments. For instance, when humans are in a “positive arousal state,“ they think about prospective benefits and enjoy the feeling of risk. All of us are familiar with
33、 the giddy excitement that accompanies a triumph. Camelia Kuhnen and Brian Knutson, two researchers at Stanford University, have found that people are more likely to take a foolish risk when their brains show this kind of activation. But when people think about costs, they use different brain module
34、s and become more anxious. They play it too safe, at least in the laboratory. Furthermore, people are especially afraid of ambiguous risks with unknown odds. This may help explain why so many investors are reluctant to seek out foreign stock markets, even when they could diversify their portfolios a
35、t low cost. If one truth shines through, it is that people are not consistent or fully rational decision makers. Peter L. Bossaerts, an economics professor at the California Institute of Technology, has found that brains assess risk and return separately, rather than making a single calculation of w
36、hat economists call expected utility. Researchers can see on the screen how people compartmentalize their choices into different parts of their brains. This may not always sound like economics but neuro-economists start with the insightborrowed from the economist Friedrich Hayekthat resources are sc
37、arce within the brain and must be allocated to competing uses. Whether in economies or brains, well-functioning systems should not be expected to exhibit centralized command and control. Neuro-economics is just getting started. The first major empirical paper was published in 2001 by Kevin McCabe, D
38、aniel Houser, Lee Ryan, Vernon Smith and Theodore Trouard, all economics professors. A neuro-economics laboratory at Cal Tech, led by Colin F. Camerer, a math prodigy and now an economics professor, has assembled the foremost group of interdisciplinary researchers. Many of the early entrants, who ha
39、ve learned neurology as well as economics, continue to dominate the field. Investors are becoming interested in the money-making potential of these ideas. Imagine training traders to set their emotions aside or testing their objectivity in advance with brain scans. Futuristic devices might monitor t
40、heir emotions on the trading floor or in a bargaining session and instruct them how to compensate for possible mistakes. Are the best traders most adept at reading the minds of others? Or is trading skill correlated with traits like the ability to calculate and ignore the surrounding caldron of huma
41、n emotions? More ambitiously, future research may try to determine when a short-term price bubble will collapse. Does the market tide turn when people stop smiling, adjust to their adrenalin levels or make different kinds of eye contact? Not all of neuro-economics uses brain scans. Andrew W. Lo, a p
42、rofessor at the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, applied polygraph-like techniques to securities traders to show that anxiety and fear affect market behavior. Measuring eye movements, which is easy and cheap, helps the researcher ascertain what is on a subject
43、“s mind. Other researchers have opened up monkey skulls to measure individual neurons; monkey neurons fire in proportion to the amount and probability of rewards. But do most economists care? Are phrases like “nucleus accumbens“referring to a subcortical nucleus of the brain associated with rewardwe
44、lcome in a profession caught up in interest rates and money supply? Skeptics question whether neuro-economics explains real-world phenomena.（分数：12.00）(1).According to the passage, neuro-economists might be interested in the following topics EXCEPT _.（分数：3.00）A.how does the context influence our choi
45、cesB.why are people afraid of ambiguous risksC.the mechanism of brains when people make economic choicesD.the way brains work when businessmen are doing sports(2).The fifth paragraph _.（分数：3.00）A.generally agrees with the previous two paragraphsB.has no connection with the previous two paragraphsC.r
46、epeats the argument of the second paragraphD.contradicts the paragraph that follows(3).The findings of neuro-economics are helpful for investors in the following ways EXCEPT _.（分数：3.00）A.evaluating their personalities to make them know more about themselvesB.reducing the negative influence of their
47、emotion on making decisionsC.offering advice to help them correct possible mistakes in businessD.helping them win the bargains so as to make more money in business(4).What is the role of the last paragraph in the development of the topic?（分数：3.00）A.To introduce how Andre W. Lo exams human brains.B.T
48、o describe how eyes movements reflect minds.C.To show the author“s concern about the significance of the research.D.To explain the technical term “nucleus accumbens“.George Williams, one of Scottsdale“s last remaining cowboys, has been raising horses and cattle on his 120 acres for 20 years. The cat
49、tle go to the slaughterhouse, the horses to rodeos. But Mr. Williams is stomping mad. His problems began last year when dishonest neighbours started to steal his cattle. Then other neighbours, most of them newcomers, took offence at his horses roaming on theft properties. Arizona is an open-range state: livestock have the right of way and there is no fine for trespassing. This has been on the law books since 1913. Mr. Williams, who is elderly and in poor health, is angry that he has to spend so much of his time fielding complaints and retrieving stolen c
